Best of Secret Santa 2016 (So Far)

It’s our eighth year here at Reddit Gifts and the original Secret Santa exchange is fully underway. With over 100,000 participants, the gallery is already filling with thank yous for the Santas who got their shopping and shipping done early for this year’s exchange. r/secretsanta is packed with folks excitedly sending off and anticipating their gifts and you can also see Reddit Gifts talk out in the wild of social media.

Every year we like to highlight some of our favorite gifts and giftees with our “Best of” blog posts. You can see some favorites from last year here and here. These gifts are sometimes touching, sometimes funny, and always a reminder of the best part of giving – that great feeling you get when you’ve made someone else happy.

Some notable Secret Santa participants have already sent and received their gifts! Check out the awesome grab bag Alyssa Milano sent her giftee:

Our Santas have gone out of their way this year to brighten the holidays for their giftees. For some, this meant donating to groups such as the ASPCA, The Trevor Project, and The True Colors Fund. For others, it meant helping their giftees cross big experiences off their bucket lists.

Sometimes when going through the gallery, we find gifts that are so wonderfully weird and so quintessentially Reddit that they must be shared. So far, this year has been no exception, with fresh pineapple, cat butt, and John Cena all playing their part. Below, you’ll find a variety of strange gifts – our favorite being the very literal gift interpretation of r/trees.

Personalizing a gift to make it a special experience for a giftee can be the height of thoughtfulness, and that’s exactly what these Santas did:

Redditgifts holds a giant Present for Pets exchange each year and I’m sure it’s no surprise to anyone that pets being the stars spills over into other exchanges, especially Secret Santa. One giftee even received a stroller for her cat and included a video of her adventures in trying to get kitty to comply. Here’s a few more entertaining pets, posing in their brand new Secret Santa finery:

To close out our first round picks, I’d like to include my personal favorite. This Santa had a print made with a photo of their giftee’s kitten, Kylo. Yes. This happened. And it was awesome:

Because this post highlights gifts already in the gallery from early and eager Santas, we’ll be putting together another blog post in the next few weeks, sharing more of the best gifts from this year’s Secret Santa exchange. These posts from excited Santas in our community subreddit, r/secretsanta, are an example of the many gifts still to come, as most of our Santas send their gifts out on or around our fast approaching shipping deadline.

If you have already shipped your gift this year and want to continue the gifting and be someone’s hero or if you simply missed matching and still want a chance to take part and give a gift, please consider being one of our generous rematch Santas. Rematch Santas are our most amazing community members who swoop in and save the day when life may get in the way for other Santas. They get one month of our Elves status, a special rematcher trophy, and big gratitude from their giftee. Sound good? You can sign up here.

This post was originally published by u/liltrixxy on the Reddit Gifts Blog on Dec. 14, 2016.